Where There's Smoke, There's Fire
by highlands girl
Summary: Lula thinks she has figured out Ranger's secret. Could she be right? Babe one-shot.


_**A/N: Thanks to Dog in the Manger for her excellent beta skills and to Margaret for her encouragement. All mistakes are mine.**_

In the summer, Trenton, New Jersey bears a scary resemblance to the gateway to hell. It's unbearably hot and humid, the air thick with the smell of urban decay, burning oil from the local refinery, and exhaust from hundreds, if not thousands, of cars trying to escape to the shore.

The winters are brutal in a different way. The sky is perpetually obscured by dark, low-hanging clouds, and it's bitterly cold and damp. Falling snow takes on a dirty gray color before it even hits the ground.

For a handful of weeks every fall though, usually from mid-September to the end of October, Trenton is perfect. Most days, the air is cool and crisp, with brilliant blue skies occasionally streaked with fluffy, innocuous clouds. The trees lining Hamilton blaze with color, evoking a row of debutantes heading to a party.

Today was one of those days. The door to the bonds office was propped open, letting in the breeze and a faint smell of hickory smoke and burnt sugar, wafting from the new barbecue joint down the street. Connie was at her desk, flipping through a copy of _Glamour_. Stephanie was in the guest chair with the October issue of _Elle_. In celebration of Halloween, the candy bowl on the desk was filled with bite-sized chocolate bars and little bags of candy corn, but the pile of empty candy wrappers between Connie and Steph was growing rapidly.

Lula was sitting sideways on the cracked, faux leather couch, and no surprise, was perusing _Cosmopolitan_. She had her own value size bag of candy corn in her lap.

"I always knew it had to be something like that," she chortled, slapping her spandex-covered thigh.

"Wanna share?" Connie asked, looking up from her magazine while surreptitiously using the edge of a manicured nail to dig a little candy out from between her teeth.

"White girl here has been keeping secrets. I just figured out the truth about her man."

"Joe and I broke up nearly three months ago," Stephanie said automatically, turning another page. _Again. But this time it looked as if it was going to stick, _she thought.

"I ain't talkin' about Super Cop," Lula answered. "I'm talkin' about Mr. Dark, Delicious and Dangerous. I'm talkin' about _Bat _Man."

Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, Connie strutted over to the couch to peer over Lula's shoulder.

"How to tell if your boyfriend is a vampire," she read slowly, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. "That's the _Cosmo _Quiz of the Month?"

"He's not my boyfriend," Stephanie protested. A little belatedly, she added, "And he's certainly not a vampire."

"You sure about that?" Lula smirked. "From what I read here, there ain't no other explanation for why he's so mysterious and shit."

"Ridiculous," Stephanie muttered, turning pages of her magazine so that each one made a loud _snap_.

"You won't say that after you take the quiz. Unless you be chicken…" Lula flapped her arms a bit and gave a little squawk. Connie tried to hold back a snicker, but failed miserably and erupted with helpless laughter over Lula's antics. Normally, she avoided getting in the middle of things with her friends, but this was too good to miss. "Go on, Steph," she urged. "You know, she's not going to leave you alone until you do it."

"Fine," Steph huffed, reaching into the candy bowl again for a miniature Hershey bar. "Let's just get it over with."

She'd let Lula have some fun at her expense and then they could get back to searching for inspiration for their Halloween costumes.

"The questions start out real easy." Lula cleared her throat, making she sure had their attention. "Does he always wear black, even in the summer?"

"Lots of people are partial to black. Rappers. Mobsters." Connie shook her head knowingly at that. "Even some movie stars," Steph continued, holding up her magazine, open to the page with a picture of Johnny Depp.

Lula was undeterred. " Still, that's one point. Is he bothered by sunlight? Is he in a profession that allows him to mainly work at night?"

"He catches criminals for a living. Everybody knows the bad guys come out at night." At least, catching criminals was part of what he did for a living. Steph wasn't totally sure about the other crazy ninja stuff that he did, but she suspected it might involve wearing black and working at night.

"Does he have an unusual diet, avoiding things that most humans consider delicious?"

Stephanie bit her lip. That one was a little bit harder to explain because she didn't understand it herself, but she just rolled her eyes and replied, "_Cosmo_ says that vampires favor salads, no dressing? Really?"

"Does he have almost super-human strength?"

_No 'almost' about it_, thought Steph. But she now she was ready to give it right back to Lula. "That's a RangeMan requirement. You think Tank's a vampire too?"

Lula let the magazine fall onto her chest for a moment. "Girl, Tank's more werewolf than vampire if you get what I'm sayin'." She waited for Steph's eyes to widen in understanding. "But we ain't discussin' my man. Your man just earned another point." She picked up the magazine again.

"Are his senses, sight, smell, hearing, all amazingly developed?"

"He does seem to have eyes in the back of his head, Steph," Connie said with just a touch of seriousness in her tone. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone more aware of his surroundings."

"Hello? He's trained as an Army Ranger." Exasperated, Steph crossed her arms in front of her chest and stuck out her lower lip.

"Does he tend to appear unexpectedly, and then disappear, almost like smoke?"

"Huh." Connie straightened up, hand on her hip, and looked thoughtful. For the first time, Stephanie began to feel some nagging little tendrils of doubt. Lula, looking smug, took advantage of her hesitation and forged on.

"Can he do that telepathy shit, you know, like read your mind?" She didn't wait for an answer.

"Does he have an extraordinary capacity for healing, recovering from wounds that would have killed others?" Steph squeezed her eyes shut tight, remembering him on the floor of her apartment, the rapidly expanding dark red circle of blood around his head after Scrog shot him. She was sure he was dying, and the memory of that made her want to vomit.

"Does he consider biting an essential part of foreplay?" Steph's eyes popped back open. She was a little surprised at the abrupt change in the nature of the questions, but she really shouldn't have been. This was the _Cosmopolitan_ Quiz of the Month, after all.

"I wouldn't know," she lied, feeling her cheeks begin to burn.

There was no stopping Lula now. "Does simply being close to him incite physical and emotional euphoria?" She let the word 'euphoria' roll off her tongue, emphasizing all four syllables.

"I—"

"After he gives you an orgasm, do you feel utterly and completely drained, almost as if you could use a blood transfusion?"

Connie fanned herself with her magazine and pretended to swoon.

Before Stephanie could respond, she felt a telltale tingle on the back of her neck. Connie and Lula both fell silent, and it was as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room. All eyes were on Ranger, who was now standing just inside the doorway. He was dressed head to toe in black. Black cargos. Black windbreaker over black long-sleeved t-shirt. Mirrored Oakley sunglasses covered his eyes, his face giving nothing away.

"Sharing secrets, Babe?" he asked, taking a step toward her.

"What? No! Of course not—"

She was rambling, and he pressed an index finger to her lips to get her stop. "Let's continue this outside."

As he tugged her toward the alley, she planted her feet. "Honestly, Ranger, whatever you have to say to me you could just say it here."

"I could." His lips tilted up in a ghost of a smile. "But I won't. The alley's more private, and it gets us out of the sun."

As he backed her into the cool bricks of the alley wall, she felt her heart rate notch up. He tucked two fingers into the waistband of her jeans, pulling her against him. "Do you want to tell me what that was about?"

"Probably not," she admitted. When he was this close to her, she found it hard to think straight, but she was pretty sure she knew the right answer to _that _question. With any luck, he had completely missed the beginning of the whole stupid conversation. _Vampire. Seriously?_

He pulled back enough to push his sunglasses to the top of his head and he studied her, eyes black with an emotion that both thrilled and terrified her. "Dark and delicious I get, but do you really think I'm dangerous, Stephanie?"

_Add one point to the vampire total for ESP,_ she thought, her heart now racing. With his thigh pressed between her legs, he was dangerously close to getting the points for euphoria too.

"That's information to the enemy, but still good to know," he said softly, his lips barely brushing hers. He kissed the edge of her jaw and then his mouth hovered over her neck, right behind her ear. She waited, half expecting, half fearing, the sting of his teeth against her skin. But it never came. "I'll be out of town for a couple of weeks," he whispered. "I'll try to be back for Fall Ball. If you need anything, call Tank."

And then he was gone. Like smoke.

Connie and Lula were at the window, their noses pressed to the glass, when she staggered back to the bonds office.

"He's not my boyfriend!"

_oOoOo_

Fall Ball was the city's biggest and most elaborate Halloween party, at least for those who were too old to trick or treat. For one night, the civic center was transformed into a spooky wonderland, with thousands of twinkling orange lights and a ghostly mist cranked out by strategically placed fog machines.

Because this year's gala was a benefit for the Widows and Orphans fund, both the police and fire departments were well represented tonight. RangeMan's corporate sponsorship meant the Merry Men were out in force. As for the rest of Trenton, Stephanie guessed the draw might have been food catered by one of the hottest new restaurants in town. Not one, but three bands were scheduled to provide the evening's entertainment. And then there was the 'Famous Couples' costume contest. Not even her parents could resist that. Her mother, decked out as Lady Liberty, was chatting happily with Shirley Gazarra and her mother, while her father, dressed as Uncle Sam, was deep in conversation with a man she didn't recognize. Bald and a bit rotund, he was the perfect Friar Tuck.

Leaning against an elaborately carved Styrofoam "tombstone" in the faux graveyard at the edge of the dance floor, Stephanie nursed her second drink. The fizzy green cocktail burned on the way down and made her eyes water, but she was pretty sure that something else was making her neck tingle.

"Don't tell me this was your idea." She could hear the amusement in his voice and imagined that his lips were turned up in an almost smile.

"Nah. But the boys had fun with it. Turned it into a bit of a competition with the TPD. They didn't miss a single one."

She took a step to the right so he could get a good look at the epitaph.

_Here lies the Porsche Boxster. May she rest in pieces._

She shivered as Ranger moved closer and let his fingers trail gently down one of her lace-covered arms. "That's some dress, Babe."

She twirled for him, the lace at her wrists meant to imitate spider webs fluttering as she did. The dress was long and sheer and hugged her curves in all of the right places. "You like?" she asked.

"Mmm. More than like." He grasped a lock of straight black hair and wrapped it around his finger. "I miss your crazy brown curls though."

"They'll be back tomorrow," she confirmed for him. "But tonight, I am Morticia Addams." Ranger followed her gaze to the nearest RangeMan table. Hector, with a pinstripe suit and a pencil thin moustache, made the perfect Gomez. Señor Addams tipped his unlit cigar at them, and Stephanie blew back a kiss.

"You want to tell me why Cal is wearing a long blond wig that completely covers his face?"

"He agreed to be Cousin Itt."_ Obviously_, she thought.

Stephanie looked Ranger up and down appraisingly. With his black Armani tuxedo, crisp white shirt and platinum cuff links, he was more Bruce Wayne than Batman tonight. "So who are you supposed to be?"

"Me." He smiled, and she could see his perfectly white teeth gleaming in the darkness. "What? Now I'm not scary enough for you?"

Before she could formulate a coherent answer, the band stuck up a tango, and he pulled her into his arms. "Dance with me, Querida."

"So…" she laughed nervously as they moved across the floor. "I didn't think you were going to make it tonight. When did you get back?"

"Just now," he said.

"How was the traffic from Newark? Did one of the guys pick you up?" She wondered who might have been available. She mentally counted off the RangeMen who were here and those, she knew, who had drawn the short straws for monitoring and surveillance tonight.

"I didn't fly commercial." She spun away from him and he pulled her back, pressing her back into his front. She caught another flash of his smile in the dark, and she wondered how she could never have really noticed his teeth before.

"You're being a little cryptic tonight," she told him and immediately regretted her choice of words.

"Cryptic, huh? That sounds about right." His voice was low and smooth, the words uttered against her ear.

Without warning, his lips were on her neck, and she thought her heart might beat out of her chest. "Babe, I need a favor…"

Lula's words came rushing back to her. _You better watch out, girl. A man like that has needs, and I see the way he be looking at you. He be wanting you to be his vampire mistress. One bite on the neck and…_

At the time, she had tried to dismiss Lula's warnings as one big joke, even if Ranger had earned a nearly perfect "vampire score." After all, she didn't believe in vampires… much. There _had_ to be a perfectly logical explanation for Ranger's extraordinary abilities, even if she couldn't fathom what it might be.

Ultimately, though, after all of the little clues, the moment of truth had arrived. She desperately tried to think of everything she'd ever learned about vampires. _Did he need all of her blood or just a little of it? Unless something went terribly wrong, wouldn't this bind them together forever? Did she want to be with him for all eternity? Stupid question. Was she brave enough to take the next step? Would she ever forgive herself if she didn't?_

Her decision made, she turned her head just a little bit to give him better access. "Yes," she said with a little gasp. "Whatever you want. Whatever you need."

When he felt her tense, he lifted his head and turned her in his arms, so she was facing him.

"Babe? You want to know what the favor is?"

"Just do it," she said. "Will it be painful? I mean, I'm not going to change my mind, but I was just wondering…"

He caressed her cheek for a moment and then tilted his forehead until it rested against hers.

"I hope it won't be painful. If it is, then all of my planning has been for nothing." He pulled a small velvet box from his jacket.

"Marry me. Stephanie. Tonight, on the stroke of midnight."

"You're not serious," she protested, laying her head against his chest while trying to gather her thoughts.

"Our families and friends are here. There's music and food and a cake that you're going to love." He nodded toward a buffet table, and she wondered how she possibly could have missed it until now: five, black fondant-covered layers decorated with lacy white spider webs and blood-red roses. "The priest is ready to go."

The man dressed as Friar Tuck was smiling at them indulgently, and he gave Stephanie a little finger wave.

"You're wearing a great dress." The wolf grin appeared as Ranger let his finger trace the edge of her neckline down to her cleavage.

"It's black," she protested.

His lips followed the trail of his finger. "You wanted to wear white?"

"Yes," she said after a moment of hesitation.

One eyebrow went up in question. "Yes, you wanted a white dress?"

"Yes, I'll marry you," she clarified. "Tonight."

The music had changed to something slow and soulful, and they swayed gently, just holding one another. "You want to tell me what you thought I was asking of you?" he questioned.

"Later," she said. "It's not really important." _The result was the same in the end. Forever._

She buried her face against his neck, her lips seeking his pulse point. She lingered for a moment, tasting the spot with her tongue. Then she bit down… hard.

Truth was, he did like a bit of playful nipping as a part of foreplay.

And so did she.

_A/N: Yep. A response to lulabelle09's challenge. Just didn't want to give anything away. Gotta love Wikipedia and the page devoted to characteristics of vampires. _


End file.
